


Bitter Women, Blackened Hearts

by WeezlBot



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Clarisse is drunk, Crying, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 00:33:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeezlBot/pseuds/WeezlBot
Summary: Clarisse is drunk to shit on a hill and gets a visitor. In which Nico is sad, Clarisse is drunk, Chris is concerned and Will is mentioned a lot.





	Bitter Women, Blackened Hearts

The hard ground of the hill felt cold against Clarisse’s shoulders as she took a swig from her canteen. The burn as the liquid flowed down her throat was oddly satisfying. She was lying on a greenish grassy hill just outside of New Rome, behind an oddities shop of unknown ownership. According to the garbage in her surroundings, this hill was a popular hangout spot. 

It was a coolish day in March, and she had just gotten off from college on Spring Break. She held no particular love or trust for the Romans, but Chris had wanted to visit just to see the various older Greek demigods that had retired there in the past four years. As for Clarisse? She didn’t know why she had come along. She didn’t particularly like the Romans. She had mixed feelings, mostly negative, for most of the other retired Greeks- she hated Percy Jackson, didn’t care much either way for Nico di Angelo or Annabeth Chase, and didn’t hold much love for Lou Ellen Blackstone and certainly not for Cecil Markowitz. 

Will Solace was okay, she guessed. He didn’t suck as much as the others, and he definitely wasn’t a threat to her status. Besides, she had a respect for medics, as her grandmother had been a nurse in Vietnam. Will didn’t even carry weapons on him most of the time. Clarisse couldn’t image a scenario in which she’d go into battle without a weapon. Hell, most of the time she carried at least a concealed dagger everywhere, even to class. It wasn’t rare for it to be under her pillow at night.

So yes, Clarisse respected Will Solace. Had he cast a curse on her that had left her speaking in sonnets for thirty-six hours? Yes. Was he an annoyingly optimistic, bizarrely cheerful Apollo kid? Yes. But… she did have respect for him. He had an inner strength that she envied.

Clarisse huffed and took another drink. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need friends, she had herself. And Chris. Chris was helpful. 

She heard a door slam behind her and someone stumbled halfway down the hill and flopped down some feet from her. She wiped the cold water from her eyes and sat up, looking towards the unknown trespasser. It was a young man in a black leather aviator’s jacket. “Whaddya want, di Angelo?”

Nico sniffled and clenched his jaw. “Nothing. Go away.”

“No one tells Clarisse La Rue to go away. If you don’t want anything with me, we can sit in silence, but I ain’t leaving if I was here first, which I was. If you wanna sit here and cry, I have no problem with that, but I’m not leaving,” Clarisse slurred. “It’s everyone’s hill.”

There was a pause, punctuated by Nico’s sniffling and Clarisse’s boozed-up hiccups. Finally, Clarisse's curiosity overwhelmed her. “What are you crying about?”

Another pause. “... It’s not fair,” Nico said bitterly. “It’s not fair.”

“World’s not fair. Life’s not fair,” Clarisse responded.

Nico nodded. “But… why does the… why do I have to hurt so bad from it? Why does _Will_ have to hurt from it?”

“See my previous comment,” Clarisse muttered.

“I know, but why are people always so terrible to one another? It’s almost like we as a species take pleasure from hurting each other. Will said it was better now than it was when I was a little kid before I went into the Lotus but it isn’t. Or… it is, but only _legally,_ you know? I don’t think it ever will be better in terms of people’s mindsets,” Nico groaned.

Clarisse huffed. “The world doesn’t “get better,” di Angelo. People were shit, are shit and always will be shit. Solace just sees the world through rainbow glitter glasses, that’s why he says the shit he says.” 

Nico sniffled. “Maybe. I’m sorry, I just… I just…”

“Let me guess,” Clarisse cut in. “You like him, nay, maybe even love him, and you want to believe whatever he says.”

“I… I guess…”

“Mhm. You guess. Yeah, and do slash did you have a contingency plan for when or if you found out he was lying to you? No. You didn’t and don’t. And so you followed him, blindly, like a lost little lamb, never even thinking that _maybe, just maybe_ he may just have said some things to you just to make you sleep with him. That’s why you’re upset now. Because you trusted and were vulnerable. And that’s why,” Clarisse slurred, “you should never be so fucking stupid as to put trust on anybody. Because it hurts you and it hurts your friends and it can even kill you if you’re unlucky enough.” Clarisse took another swig of her drink to block out the memories that were rising to the forefront of her mind, memories of a person who had loved and trusted freely and who had been led astray, had been led so far astray…

“But… Will said…” Nico couldn’t put words to his thoughts. “Will said that he would never lie to me.”

Clarisse took a breath. “Will… I doubt Will would tell a deliberate lie. He’s a pretty nice guy and also he’s a pussy, so he doesn’t want to risk having to fight you because you’d beat the shit out of him, so of course he wouldn’t lie to you on purpose. It’s quite possible what he told you was what he thought was a half truth, or maybe he didn’t even know it was a lie. Either way, my previous statement still stands. I mean, Will probably didn’t want to lie to you, but he still did just by being such a _fucking_ optimist.”

“... Yeah. On a different note, you think I could beat up Will and I probably can, but do you think I could beat up your brother Sherman Yang?” Nico asked.

“Sherm? Totally. He’s a pussy too. They’re all pussies.”

There was another pause. Clarisse polished off the last of her drink. “... Godsfuckingdammit.”

“What?” Nico asked miserably.

“Need more drink. Hey, save my spot. I’m goin’ on a whiskey run, want anything?” Clarisse asked. “You know, ‘cuz I’m all mellow from it right now and feeling nice and… shit.”

“Yeah. Pick me up a bottle of rum and some coke.”

“Cola or crack?”

“Cola. Will would kill me if I did cocaine.”

“See,” Clarisse started, “this is the kind of shit I’m talking about. The love and trust shit.”

“Don’t you have a… never mind. Just go get the booze.”

“Boyfriend? No. I have a fiance. We’re gonna get married at some point next year or something.”

“That’s nice,” Nico mumbled as Clarisse staggered off. He gave her a 10% chance of making it back both unhurt and with both bottles of alcohol, which left him ample time to simmer in his bad feelings. Clarisse hadn’t exactly hit the nail on the head in her insane, drunken rant about human nature, but her bleak pessimism was reassuring in its own way. It was also reassuring to hear another person say what he had suspected for so long, that when it came down to it, Will had wanted to get laid so badly that he pretty much said whatever he thought would make Nico sleep with him. Granted, he’d been really nice about it, but his base motive was still sex. But in the end, was that really so bad? The sex felt good, after all, and Will was entitled to his feelings, even if they were “bad”.

Nico wiped his eyes. Will would be worried about him by now. He was probably worried that he had done something to upset him. Nico felt bad for worrying Will, he just… couldn’t face him after what he had learned about his past. Poor Will, he had been hurt. 

Twenty minutes later, Clarisse stumbled back and fell clumsily onto the hill. “Sonofa…” 

“Did you get the bottles?” Nico asked.

“Yeah. I keep my word,” Clarisse slurred. She rolled a bottle in his direction, followed closely by a can, then a red cup. “Cut it as you wish.”

Nico mixed his drink and took it down, relaxing slightly. “Hey, at least alcohol is neither discriminatory or denominational, right?”

“Mhmm. Yeah, I don’t give a fuck about any of it.” Clarisse popped the cap of the whiskey and took a deep drink.

“O-okay.” Nico didn’t quite know what Clarisse was getting at, but he didn’t want to complain, so he said nothing. After all, he was unarmed as he had not picked up his sword before coming to the hill, and Clarisse had a spear, a dagger, and leather gauntlets with bronze-plated knuckles. Perfect for punching. 

Some time passed. Nico slipped into a pleasant, alcohol-induced haze; Clarisse pounded more whiskey. She heard footsteps behind her. “Clarisse!” 

“Nnh. Chris?”

“Clarisse, are you okay?” 

Nico turned to see a thin Hispanic boy kneeling over Clarisse. “Hey… who are you again?” he asked.

“Chris Rodriguez. I’m her fiance.”

“Oh, yeah. She told me about you,” Nico responded. 

“Mhm.” He turned back to Clarisse. “Clarisse, are you okay? Look at me, honey.”

“I’m fine! Don’t call me honey,” Clarisse slurred. 

“Are you drunk again? We don’t have the money for you to drink like this. I work in a McDonald’s, for the gods’ sake!” Chris nagged.

“And I work as a bartender. Your point?”

Chris sighed. “Never mind. I’m just glad you’re drunk and not injured. I’m sorry for nagging you.”

“Yeah. You’re forgiven,” Clarisse mumbled. “You’re the only person I wanna forgive, ya know?” She waved her hand. “All the others are bitches n’ skanks… like Jackson, he’s a biiiitch-baby skank. Where is he? I want to fight him.”

“Please don’t try to fight Percy Jackson. You’re drunk and that’ll affect your performance. How about you think about it again when you’re sober?” Chris begged. “I mean, you know I support you in all your endeavors- including your quest to kill Percy Jackson and mount his head on the wall in your granny’s basement- but I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt trying to fight anyone right now.”

Clarisse scowled. “Who said I would get hurt? I’d crush the bastard. He wouldn’t be able to touch me.”

Chris smiled sadly. “I think his skills improved since you two first tussled. Anyway, please just put this on hold until you’re sober, okay? Please. For me?”

Clarisse rolled her eyes. “Fine. Help me up,” she said, holding out her arms.

Chris did so, pulling his drunk fiancee to her feet. “There you go.”

Clarisse swayed and Chris put his arm around her. “Let’s go back to the truck, okay?” 

“You guys are sleeping in your truck?” Nico asked.

“Yeah. We don’t have money for a hotel for more than three days and we’re coming for five, plus one day driving there and one day driving back, so we’re sleeping in our truck for the driving days plus today and four days from now,” Chris replied. “It kind of sucks, but it… it’s gonna be fine. It’s not the worst situation that we’ve been in.”

Nico nodded. His thoughts were a little hazy, but he could still communicate, he thought. “Where do you two normally live?”

“Oh, we have a little apartment. It’s one room and a bathroom,” Chris laughed.

“Okay,” Nico said. “Have you seen Will Solace around?” 

Chris shrugged. “Blond healer guy? Yeah. He asked where you were. I said I didn’t know. He was hanging out in the park near all the pretty fountains. Why do you ask?”

“We had a… I don’t know how to explain it, but we need to talk,” Nico responded.

“Oh, okay. Is everything all right?”

“Not really, but there’s nothing you can do to fix it. At this point it’s between me and him. Thanks for asking, though.”

“You’re welcome. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get Clarisse out of here. I mean, look at her. She can’t even stand up straight,” Chris complained. 

“Fuck you, I can stand up fine!” Clarisse said as she fell down onto her side.

“Yes, dear,” Chris said patiently. “You can stand up fine.” He pulled her to her feet and put an arm around her armor-clad back, herding her towards the truck.

_Well, there goes the second most dysfunctional couple I know. Next to me and Will, of course,_ Nico thought. _Speaking of Will, I need to go find him._

_I need to go make peace with my boyfriend._

THE END


End file.
